


We Flutter for a Day and Think it is Forever

by lullabelle



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: whoverse_las, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-23
Updated: 2010-09-23
Packaged: 2018-01-07 11:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lullabelle/pseuds/lullabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suzie Costello is driven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Flutter for a Day and Think it is Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Written for whoverse_las Challenge #3, which was a quote from Oscar Wilde, "We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." This has been tweaked from the original version with the help of the feedback I received on the open post. Thanks, guys!

She is going to make a difference. The world is going to be a better place, because she is going to make it one.

***

Suzie is an atheist, a fact which both exasperates and embarrasses her family.

She is gratified, but not particularly surprised, when Torchwood presents her with reasonable proof that her opinion is the correct one. When you die, there's nothing. Take that, choirs of angels.

God is a lie we tell ourselves when the chaos becomes too frightening, she says. We are all the products of circumstance.

***

Suzie and Owen are fucking. They're using each other. He is her particularly clever dildo, and she is the punching bag he hits with his pelvis instead of his fists. It's mutually beneficial.

Things fall apart when his verbal blows don't elicit the desired reaction, or sometimes any reaction at all.

Owen needs something to hurt. Suzie just wants something to feel, but all Owen makes her feel is shitty.

***

Circumstances provide her with the gauntlet, and she sees it for exactly what it is: a way to tame the chaos. She is the only one it reacts to, of course. She's the only one in this place, in this tomb, who cares enough.

She is going to change the world.

***

Experiments with the gauntlet go well until Owen criticizes her (admittedly large) goldfish budget, and rudely insists that she start varying her sources because the local pet store must be looking at her funny by now.

He won't ever understand. He's not driven the way she is.

She imagines what it would be like to jerk him off wearing only the gauntlet: the scrape and the scream of it, and the distant warmth of flesh through the metal.

***

Up in Brecon Beacons an alien parasite kills all the butterflies in a 30km radius. The whole thing is publicly blamed on pesticides, and Torchwood acquires whole buckets of colourful little corpses to study.

In a moment of weakness, Suzie dons the gauntlet and thrusts her hand into one of the buckets. She's instantly enveloped in a small yellow and blue whirlwind. It's beautiful, but brief.

When the butterflies are still again, and littered across the concrete floor, she notices Jack watching her from the doorway. She's been caught, silver-handed. She expects a lecture, but instead he offers her a small, sympathetic smile and squeezes her shoulders as he passes. They are always surrounded by death.

He thinks he understands her, but he doesn't really.

***

Her experiments progress.

She can bring order to the chaos. Those who deserve life should have it, always.

She should have it, always.

She is going to change the world.

Suzie Costello is, after all, a genius in her field.


End file.
